NEWS FEATURE: `Immigrant Hinduism’ Takes Distinctly American Shape

c. 2005 Religion News Service NORTHRIDGE, Calif. _ On a cold, rainy Sunday morning in the parking lot of a Hindu temple, a group of Indian-American medical students sign up devotees for free diabetes and cholesterol tests. Inside, M. Kalyan Sharma, a 69-year-old priest, hands out fruits and little plastic pouches filled with an assortment […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

NORTHRIDGE, Calif. _ On a cold, rainy Sunday morning in the parking lot of a Hindu temple, a group of Indian-American medical students sign up devotees for free diabetes and cholesterol tests.

Inside, M. Kalyan Sharma, a 69-year-old priest, hands out fruits and little plastic pouches filled with an assortment of nuts. This is prasad, the sacred offering given after prayers.


Devotees at the temple know each other. They identify with one another. Spending Sunday mornings together seems like a natural thing for members of this Hindu community to do.

The Northridge Hindu temple is unlike any in India. The faith is “immigrant Hinduism,” different in conception as well as in practice from Hinduism in India. This Hindu community is a conscious construction.

There are many gods and goddesses in Hinduism. Their importance varies regionally, with Hindus in some parts of India believing in some gods more intimately than others in the pantheon. And then there are sub-sects of the religion, such as the Jains, who have their own deities and rituals but have not broken away completely from Hinduism.

So when the people here decided to build a Hindu temple, they had to grapple with a peculiar problem: They had to first come up with a sense of what Hinduism means to Indians in America.

“We are trying to unite different (Indian-American) communities by identifying a common religious link _ the Hindu link,” says Bal Sarad, vice president of the Hindu Temple Society, the organization that manages the temple. “That is the strongest bond which is going to unite different communities. Otherwise, the north will stay north, and the south will stay south.”

“We have tried to integrate whatever ishta devatas (patron gods) different communities have,” he says.

The Hindu Temple Society has had to install idols of more than 20 gods and goddesses in an elaborate, semicircular altar. They have had to make sure that every god is placed such that they are all accorded equal respect. Each idol is 4.5 feet in height, flawless and imported from the western Indian state of Rajasthan.


There are idols of Vishnu and Shiva, the sustainer and destroyer of the Hindu trinity. There are idols of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna, the avatars or incarnations of Vishnu, and of their consorts, the goddesses Sita and Radha.

There are idols of avatars with regional significance, such as Balaji, the incarnation of Vishnu in the southern Indian Hindu belief system. And then there are idols significant to the sub-sects of Hinduism: Mahavir, a Jain deity; Jhulelal, who finds followers among the ethnic group called Sindhis; and Sai Baba, a seer with a pan-Hindu following.

Here, says Sharma, “You will find a composite picture of the whole of India.”

Most days at the temple are quiet, he says. But on Sundays and Tuesdays, the temple holds special services that attract up to 150 people. The temple’s monthly newsletter has 1,750 subscribers, but according to Sarad, the number of Indians in the valley is closer to 3,000.

In November, the day of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, thousands of people visited the temple, he says.

Sharma says in India people are moving away from their faith. “But here, you see a kind of religious tenacity.”

“Patriotism increases when you leave the country. People who live close to the holy river Ganges do not realize its significance, but here they do,” he says.


In some ways, that realization has helped maintain religious purity in traditions here, while it is being lost in India, he says. He gives the example of the Garbha, a religious community dance practiced in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

“Garbha has become polluted in India. Film music and Western influences have spoiled it there,” he says. “But the Garbha here had the originality and the freshness of the Garbha I used to see in Ahmedabad 30 years ago.”

Ahmedabad is one of the main cities in Gujarat.

At the same time, though, Sharma says that he also comes across superstitions here that are no longer in vogue in India.

“People ask me to cast out evil spirits,” he says. “People used to do that in India 50 years ago.”

Even as he says this, a woman calls him to ask for a cure for the evil eye. She complains that she has been belching for no apparent reason.

“You should see a doctor. I am a priest,” Sharma tells the woman. But then he adds that as a priest he could tell her to recite the potent Mahamrityunjaya mantra to ward off the evil influences in her life.


That, however, is not the only kind of people who frequent the temple.

The Society’s cultural secretary, Kenny Sharma, for instance, is a businessman who says his company did the wardrobe for the film “Titanic.” Kadam Shodhan, a doctor, volunteers his time to help manage the Society’s financial affairs.

Suman Prabhakar, a veterinarian, says most people who visit the temple are educated and self-made. The temple offers them a comfort zone, he says.

“Your confidence is shaken when you are alone. Your confidence is double when you have somebody above you,” he says, referring to both the gods and the elders. “I think that’s what they get here.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Says Sarad: “The purpose (behind building the temple) has been socio-religious. For the Hindu community, it’s a place where they can come, worship, seek guidance, as well as socialize over the weekends and holidays.”

There was no Hindu temple in this area when he moved here in 1984, he says. “The only alternative was to go to the Hare Krishna temple or the Malibu temple.”

Sarad, along with a group of other Indian-Americans, decided to build one. They bought the property, a former Baptist church, in December 1995 for $650,000. The building was opened for worship on Jan. 1, 1996.


The temple holds lectures and discourses by learned people _ from overseas as well as from the United States.

It also holds Sunday classes for children. They are taught a host of cultural subjects, ranging from Hindi and Sanskrit to yoga and Indian classical dance. About 70 children attend the classes.

Pandit Bhagirath, another Hindu priest who sometimes visits the temple, says the Society has been successful in imbuing Hindu values in the children of Indian-Americans.

Hindu rituals have a novelty value for children, he says, which prompts them to ask questions.

“In India, children are getting more and more Westernized. But if you look at the children here at any festival, you will see that they only wear Indian dresses,” says Bhagirath, who came to the United States in 1998.

Many Hindu festivals, regional as well as pan-Indian in scope, are celebrated in the temple. The festivals add to the community feeling.


Ganesh utsav, or festival of Lord Ganesh, is a major event for Hindus from the western Indian state of Maharashtra. “We give the lead to Maharashtrians, and other sections of the community join in,” says Sarad.

“Every year, more and more people are integrating with each other. And hopefully that will bring more harmony to the community,” he says.

MO/PH END RNS

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!